St. Louis is a pretty classic American City. Big, but not too big. Smack in the middle of the country, on the Mississippi River, with plenty of soul, and plenty to do.
We stayed in one of the many quiet suburbs, Chesterfield, with my old roommates, Nate and Casey. Actually, we arrived at about 8pm on Wednesday, right in the middle of their adorable daughter, Lynn's first birthday party :-) Just in time for home made lasagna, cake and ice cream. We couldn't have time that more perfectly... For all the excitement that first night, it was a lot more relaxed for the rest of our stay ;-)
Nate's dog, Chester, most certainly remembered me, sniffing me up and down. We played for hours, and I lavished him with attention :-)
Kim really enjoyed hanging out with Casey and helping take care of Lynn, who by the way, totally *loves* my beard!
Casey took Kim for a nice day drive around the Delmar Loop neighborhood.
I met up with my former boss, Rick, for a couple hours of work at a coffee shop and a couple of rounds of beers after work on Friday evening. Thanks for hanging out, Rick. Nate cooked pork steaks on the grill for dinner and we had a tame Friday night, taking Lynn and Chester for a walk around the lake, and then watching Oceans 13 and I crashed hard ;-)
Nate also showed us a website, XtraNormal.com. You can register for an account and direct your own animated movies. Write the script, cast the actors, choose the set, select the score, direct the camera angles, expressions, animations. It worked well enough for me in Chromium in Maverick.
Check out my first video below... (Yes, I stayed up way too late one night working on it.)
I really enjoy hanging out with Nate -- he reminds me so much of my roots in Louisiana. It's a lot of fun to chew the cud about motorcycles, hunting, fishing, guns, and trucks. We had some fun years sharing those old houses with Matt and Allison on Dove Valley and Fox Hollow in Austin. Seems like yesterday, and hundred years ago, at the same time.
Anyway, yeah, some things never change. Nate, John (his Dad), and I went skeet shooting (5-stand to be precise) on Saturday morning.
We didn't hit a lot of clays, but we definitely had a good time.
While we were exercising our 2nd Amendment rights, Kim was shopping at the mall nearby. Ah, America.
And shortly after noon, we left St. Louis and started toward Kansas City.
Nate, Casey, John, Marie -- thank you *so* much for the hospitality and all of those scrumptious, home-cooked meals ;-)
:-Dustin
No comments:
Post a Comment